"Club MTV"

[Woops]

Since "Yo! MTV Raps", "Headbangers Ball", "120 Minutes", and the year-end countdowns were given threads, why not Club MTV... a dance show similar to "American Bandstand", "Soul Train", "Solid Gold", etc.

Hosted by Downtown Julie Brown (Wubba, Wubba, Wubba) and ran from 1987 to 1992.
 


Info from Wiki, though the info about the show starting in 1985 is false since it started in 1987.



An interesting Entertainment Weekly article  about "Club MTV" from 1990.


The article stated that it aired (in 1990) at 5:30 PM in the weekdays and also some behind the scenes info (ie dancers paid 30 dollars, two day-long taping sessions for seven episodes).


Actress Jennifer Esposito & Kelsey Grammer's future ex Camille were dancers on the show.

I recalled that some clips aired on several music video retrospects on MTV & VH1, which a performance of "Only In My Dreams" by  "Debbie" Gibson aired in 1997 during a "Authentic Reproduction" block of videos from 1987.   

VH1 Classic aired a marathon about 6 years ago, though didn't have it at the time.   


Some clips:


New Kids On The Block "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" (1989) from MTV site


B-52's "Love Shack" (1989) from MTV site

That site only had three clips from the show, though not suprising...though suprising that there's even two... (the third being Milli Vanilli)


Corina "Temptation" (1991) with Downtown Julie Brown intro & interview from Corina's official YouTube channel

There's a few clips, the dancers and few  performances, on YouTube.

[Out of the Blue]

"Club MTV" was one of the few good shows that MTV has had.  It just came together right.  Downtown Julie Brown was also pretty hot on that show too.

[Woops]

Taylor Dayne "With Every Beat Of My Heart" clip was uploaded  Though while it lasts...


Even though it's lip synched, it's one of my favorite footage of Taylor Dayne.

[Out of the Blue]

There were some clips of Deborah performing on Club MTV on Youtube but they've been pulled.

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Kylie Minogue "The Loco-motion" with interview (1988)

Taylor Dayne "Tell It To My Heart" featuring the dancers and clips of the video

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Another Kylie appearance with "It's No Secret" (1989)

It's interesting that Kylie Mingoue is widley popular in the UK, but only had a few hits in the US with "The Locomotion" in 1988 and two from about 10 years ago: "Can't Get You Out of My Head" and "Love at First Sight".

[Woops]

Interesting article with some behind the scenes info of the show.


source

'Club Mtv' Shows Fanciest Footwork
By Lee Winfrey
July 18, 1988


NEW YORK — The best dance party on television is Club MTV, a cable show. It is at the hot center of an ambitious effort by MTV Networks Inc. to broaden its appeal and make more money.

Dance parties are a tradition on the little screen, dating back more than three decades to the birth of Dick Clark's American Bandstand. But Club MTV is like a mature second generation of dance parties: You almost have to be good enough to hoof it in a road-show company of A Chorus Line to get on camera here.


Start with the fact that this show airs at 3:30 each weekday afternoon on MTV, the cable channel that revolutionized the presentation of rock music on TV. Add the fact that Club MTV is the spearhead of a campaign to revitalize and reshape MTV, and so it commands the interest and support of the network's highest executives. Continue with the fact that Club MTV is videotaped on the floor of one of Manhattan's most renowned dance clubs, Palladium. Finish with the fact that many of the happy feet on the floor at any given time hope to stride away from here into professional show-business careers. This is no sock hop, boys and girls.

Club MTV is hosted by sultry Julie Brown, who got her start in show biz by winning a contest called the world disco-dancing championship in London in 1979. Daughter of an English mother and a Jamaican father who served in the Royal Air Force, Brown has spectacular legs, a charming line of light chatter and an easygoing poise that puts all the kids around her at ease. Producer Rich Zelachowski analyzed her work shrewdly when he said:

''Julie and the kids are so in tune with each other. It's not like American Bandstand, where you have like Dick Clark -- space -- and then the kids.''

Since the dancers on Club MTV tend to look like every young person's dream of the person he or she would like to be stranded on a desert island with, you might think casting director Rob Fox had an easy job. But he says he works hard for the money. Fox, 24, says he has auditioned 5,000 dancers to select the 120 or so seen on an average episode of Club MTV.

Before premiering last year, Club MTV took out ads in the Village Voice and Backstage, an actors' trade journal, to attract its first recruits.

Now Fox looks in clubs in the New York area to find replacements. From a club with a capacity of 850 people, he said, he will choose about 60 to audition and will pick six to join the show.

None of the dancers will say exactly what the pay is, but all agree it is comparatively low -- basically just travel expenses and meal money. But many of the dancers have been with Club MTV since it premiered in August 1987, which means showing up to shake it for more than 120 tapings so far.

All of the dancers know about successful Club MTV graduates who have gone on to better-paying work -- such as to the road-company troupe of Starlight Express. A star alumna of particular luminescence is Jennifer Jones, the first black Rockette hired to dance at Radio City Music Hall. Dreams are made of this.



It's hard work, since Club MTV shoots 15 shows in two days, assembling only once every six weeks. Half of the shows are repeats. But this is a group that gives new meaning to the term ''high energy.'' Commenting on the first day of taping last month, Fox said, ''They dance eight hours a day, two days in a row, and tonight, in-between, they'll go out dancing.''

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Add the fact that Club MTV is the spearhead of a campaign to revitalize and reshape MTV, and so it commands the interest and support of the network's highest executives.

Unfortunately also non music programs. "Club MTV" was cancelled in the Spring of 1992, which ironically was around the same time the network aired a certain show that signaled the beginning of the end...

It's hard work, since Club MTV shoots 15 shows in two days, assembling only once every six weeks. Half of the shows are repeats. But this is a group that gives new meaning to the term ''high energy.'' Commenting on the first day of taping last month, Fox said, ''They dance eight hours a day, two days in a row, and tonight, in-between, they'll go out dancing.''

While it may sound fun, that's lots of footwork and also quite exhausting.

[Out of the Blue]

Deb was one of the first to appear on the show in August 1987.  There was a clip of her performing "Only In My Dreams" on Youtube but since Viacom is one of the most anal that there is when it comes to having clips taken down it wasn't up for long.  I really do miss that time.  That's when Deb was new and when MTV was watchable.  It was an exciting time to be a fan.